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Bryan Colangelo says Raptors coach Jay Triano was "dealt a bad hand" this season, with injuries and a change of gears with a mid-season trade, but he's not ready to make a call on bringing him back.

The issue was raised at practice yesterday when Triano began talking about using the setbacks from this year -- a record of 15-32 since Sam Mitchell was fired -- to better himself as a coach and the Raptors as a team, at training camp in the autumn.

"I look at my notes at the end of every game on things I want to do better," Triano told reporters at the Air Canada Centre. "I look at things our players can do better, how we can incorporate things that I've seen this year that I don't want to happen next year. It's almost like you're starting to build training camp already, make sure we cover this or that."

So general manager Colangelo was asked to respond, to both Triano's optimistic stance on staying and to a strong rumour that he was promised he could go back to being an assistant in 2009-10 if he didn't work out as Sam Mitchell's replacement.

"It's safest to say the situation with Jay is as it was in the beginning, to be addressed at the end of the year," Colangelo said. "That's all that needs to be said so this doesn't become a daily distraction.

"I've been on record as saying Jay is doing a terrific job, his ideas are the right ones. If he were to be rated out right now, outside of the obvious winning and losing record, he has done a nice job taking over in mid-season."

Triano once told friends he thought he'd leave out of loyalty if Mitchell was ever let go, but accepted the post when Colangelo turned to him on Dec. 3 with the team 8-9. Triano tried to open up the team's style, but a parade of injuries disrupted the plans.

"We were without our starting point guard (Jose Calderon) 15 games and it (the hamstring injury), continues to affect him health-wise," Colangelo said. "Jermaine O'Neal was out the same amount of time, Chris Bosh for a few and Jay had to deal with a big in-season trade (O'Neal for Shawn Marion). He was dealt a bad hand.

"When you look at everything, analyzing things and watching how he works with players on the court, to see the attention he pays to them, you see he did a very solid job for coming in at mid-season. But in fairness, we will decide (his fate) at the end of the year."

Everyone seems to want the respected, level-headed Canadian-born coach of the nation's only NBA team to succeed, though many can't see Colangelo doing it, based on the losses and several 'name' coaches likely to be available this summer.

Triano insisted that future employment is not keeping him up at night.

"I'll coach somewhere," he said. "If I coach down the street at a high school, I've got notes on my experience this year.

"I don't need to be here, I can be anywhere I want. I coached at the (Simon Fraser) University and enjoyed that and I coached the national team and enjoyed that. (But) I'm not ever going to quit anything (here)."

Triano and Colangelo met for about 15 minutes at centre court yesterday, before the team flew to Philadelphia for tonight's game against the 76ers. The Raptors have lost five straight, but Triano insisted their relationship hasn't soured the past few months.

GETTING ALONG

"I don't think it has strained at all," he said, "but we're both disappointed at where we are.

"Bryan is a hands-on GM who wants to know everything and I've got nothing to hide. I want to talk to him and I want to learn from what he thinks and what he says. I want to have a boss that holds me accountable."